Antigay Bakery Happy to Provide Ex-Gay Cakes to Ministry

Sweet Cakes by Melissa, an Oregon bakery that refuses to bake cakes for same-sex couples, throws its frosting behind an ex-gay ministry.

BY Daniel Reynolds

July 24 2014 3:15 PM ET

An Oregon bakery that refuses to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples is now proudly touting cakes made for an ex-gay organization.

Sweet Cakes by Melissa, which rose to national attention and drew the ire of civil rights organizations in 2013 for refusing to make a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding, posted a photo to its Facebook page of baked goods commissioned for Restored Hope, a religious organization that advocates for gay conversion therapy.

“Cakes for Restored Hope Network. What a wonderful ministry!” the caption to a photo of five cakes adorned with the group's logo read, in addition to offering a link to the antigay group.

Restored Hope, which is helmed by “ex-lesbian” Anne Paulk, rose to prominence after the demise of Exodus International, formerly one of the most prominent ex-gay groups in the nation advocating for the belief that gay people can be turned straight through prayer, counseling, and "treatment."

Last week, Paulk, whose former ex-gay husband recently came out as gay again, claimed that the HIV and AIDS epidemic was directly linked to “any government (state or federal) that encourages men to have sex with other men and does not allow those with unwanted same-sex attraction to receive talk therapy,” adding that this government would be “a willing partner to their death.”

The religious beliefs espoused by Sweet Cakes, which owner Aaron Klein cited as the primary reason for not baking a cake for a same-sex couple, have been challenged in the past. Last year, two undercover reporters from Portland alternative weekly paper Willamette Week discovered the bakery operators were happy to bake goods for celebrations of other things conservatives traditionally scorn, including parties for divorce, a pagan solstice, and stem-cell research.